readings can be effected only by careful observation and comparison of contrasted groupings in successive variations. The process is a delicate one, and cannot be reduced to rule: but, though many cases must remain doubtful, we believe that the identification can usually be made with safety.
230. In each of the two classes of variations just noticed the array opposed to the group representing the aberrant text, that is, the Western or the Alexandrian text, as the case may be, owes much of its apparent variety, and more of its apparent numbers, to the presence of the irrelevant Syrian contingent. Two other classes of variations, differing from these in nothing but in the transposition of the habitually Syrian documents to the aberrant side, must evidently be interpreted in precisely the same way. Readings having only characteristic Western and characteristic Syrian attestation must have belonged to the Western text: readings having only characteristic Alexandrian and characteristic Syrian attestation must have belonged to the Alexandrian text.
231. On the other hand the rival readings cannot be exactly described except in negative terms. Against a Western stands a Non-Western Pre-Syrian reading: against an Alexandrian stands a Non-Alexandrian Pre-Syrian reading. The attestation of these readings is simply residual; that is, each of them must have been the reading of all extant Pre-Syrian texts, whatever they may be, except the Western in the one case, the Alexandrian in the other. It follows that, unless reason has been found for believing that all attestation of texts neither Western nor Alexandrian has perished, it must be presumed that the rival reading to a Western reading is not exclusively Alexandrian, and that the rival
